


Season's Greetings

by china_shop



Category: White Collar
Genre: Fic, Gen, Pre-Canon, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-26
Updated: 2012-11-26
Packaged: 2017-11-19 13:46:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/573916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/china_shop/pseuds/china_shop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal gets away, but he leaves something behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Season's Greetings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elmyraemilie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elmyraemilie/gifts).
  * Translation into English available: [Auguri Di Buone Feste (translation by Nik Halden)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/603109) by [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account)



"Spread out, spread out!" yelled Peter, hurtling full tilt down the frost-slick path toward the fountain, with his badge in one hand and his service weapon in the other. His agents obediently scattered, but Peter already knew it was too late. Caffrey had planned ahead, anticipated their moves, and he'd slipped away again, this time with an antique Matryoshka doll that was both valuable and culturally significant. "Dammit!"

Peter slowed to a stop by the fountain and scanned the immediate vicinity. There were a couple of women with strollers, a horde of children carrying ice skates accompanied by three grown-ups who were probably teachers, and a short bulky guy with glasses, a bad toupee and a scarf covering half his face, who was ambling toward the zoo, eating a bag of roast chestnuts. No sign of Caffrey—not that Peter really expected he'd stop to loiter here in plain view.

"Peter!" The shout sounded from the gates, and a second later Diana showed up, her breath clouding the air. "I saw him," she said. Her eyes were bright with adrenaline and the chase. "He got away, but I'm pretty sure his hands were empty."

"Pockets?" said Peter, his instincts quickening. So close! Another thirty seconds, and they might have had him.

Diana scrunched up her face uncertainly. "Maybe."

"Or maybe not." The Matryoshka doll wasn't big, but it would still be unwieldy in a pocket and it could easily get damaged. "Maybe he stashed it during the escape. Get everyone together. We're going to retrace Caffrey's route and scour the area."

Jones coordinated the search. The wind was bitter but it wasn't snowing yet, which meant Caffrey's footprints were still evident wherever he'd diverged from the path. Light, confident steps punctuated with the occasional skid or blur where he'd hastily changed direction. Of course, the half dozen agents obliterated the footprints as they went. Nothing Caffrey left behind was ever permanent.

Peter roamed restlessly, sometimes following, sometimes ahead, his gut telling him there was a clue here, if only they could find it. He glanced from a skeletal tree to a squirrel foraging by the base of a statue and back to the trees. "Wait. What's that?"

"Agent Burke?" said Jones.

"In that tree." Peter pointed, then turned impatiently. "Any of you got binoculars?"

No one did. 

"Is it a bird's nest?" suggested Diana, squinting at the dark shape against the sky. "Maybe a bird that didn't migrate and laid its eggs early."

"In December? There are no birds like that." Peter stepped closer to the tree, his eyes straining, but the sky was heavy gray and there wasn't much light. The silhouette gave nothing away. "I'm going to check it out. Jones, give me a leg up."

Jones regarded the tree doubtfully. "You sure about that?"

"Yeah." Peter stuffed his gloves in his pocket and, with Jones' help, started to climb. It was undignified and a longshot, but he just knew there was something up there. Caffrey's abandoned prize. The tree was icy, and Peter concentrated hard. He didn't want to have to explain to Elizabeth that he'd broken his arm on a ridiculous stunt when he could've sent Paulson or Jones in his place. But he was glad he hadn't sent them. He hadn't climbed a tree since he was a teenager, that oak by the river just down from his parents' house, and it was exhilarating despite the skeptical upturned faces of the junior agents. He skinned his knuckles on the bark and swore, but kept on, and the closer he got, the more apparent it became that the object wasn't a bird's nest. It was a small woven basket, its handle tied neatly to a slender twig above. 

Peter inched out on a narrow branch, testing it carefully to make sure it'd hold his weight. He was warm now and wished he'd left his coat with Diana, but it didn't matter. He was almost there. He leaned across, anchored only by a thin, cracked bough that was probably long dead, and stretching as far as he could, he managed to hook the basket with the very tips of his fingers, more by willpower than by physics, it felt like. 

The basket was about six inches across, about the size of Peter's cupped hands, and what it didn't contain was a stolen Matryoshka doll. Instead, there were three small, brightly colored, plastic-wrapped bundles—one round, one square and flat, and one misshapen. 

Peter's conviction flickered. This might have nothing at all to do with Caffrey. It could be part of a treasure hunt, or some prankster could have left it here last summer. Performance art. But even as he thought that, he saw that the yellow string securing the basket's handle was actually crime scene tape. 

Now Peter had a grip on the basket, he could pull it closer, the twig curving taut like a bow, and he used his pocket knife to cut the tape. The twig flicked back out, and Peter's balance wavered. He threw his arm around the tree trunk to steady himself. The knotted tape arced slowly through the air, and by a miracle, it didn't catch in the tree but fell to the well-trodden path below.

"Get that," Peter called to the agents. It was probably nothing, and there was no chance Caffrey had been sloppy enough to leave prints, but Peter wanted every scrap of evidence preserved. Who knew what would help them catch this guy—maybe even the knots he used would give him away.

The plastic bundles in the basket were tantalizing, but he made himself wait. He shouldn't open them until he was wearing gloves, and there were far safer and more sensible places for examining evidence than halfway up a tree in mid-December. He hooked the handle of the basket over his wrist and started his slow, careful descent.

A few minutes later, Peter set the basket on the hood of his car and prepared to disassemble its contents. 

"Shouldn't we take it back to the office, boss?" said Diana, shuffling her feet against the cold.

Peter pulled on white cotton crime scene gloves. "If there's a clue here, we might still catch him. We know he's close."

Which was bullshit. Caffrey had obviously planned this whole affair, and there was no chance of his being caught, but Peter couldn't wait. He picked up the flat parcel, about two and a half inches square, and peeled back the thin orange plastic wrapping. Inside was a miniature watercolor of the surveillance van, every detail perfect right down to its license plate. "Son of a bitch."

The irregularly shaped bundle was filled with tiny chocolate-chip cookies from a gourmet bakery in Midtown, but the _pièce de résistance_ was the third item: a wooden sphere with a hook on top, hand-painted with the New York skyline. Around the top were inscribed the words "Merry Christmas, Peter" in flowing green lettering with red highlights.

Peter snorted. The basket was obviously supposed to be a taunt, and Caffrey's making a show of giving them the slip and the painting of the van were consistent with that, as were the extravagantly expensive cookies, at a stretch. But there was so much genuine care put into the bauble that despite Peter's exasperation, he was charmed. It was so damned _Neal_. 

"Boss?" said Diana.

Peter wiped the smile from his face. "I'm willing to bet he only stole the damned doll so we'd come after him and find this."

"That's crazy," said Jones. "What if we'd caught him?"

"He thinks he's infallible," said Diana severely.

"Yeah." Peter didn't say he was starting to believe it himself. But no one was infallible. Caffrey was brilliant and impudent, and he had an ego the size of the moon, and Peter needed to take him down a peg before he started believing he could fly. And hell, maybe the next step to getting there was right here in front of him. Maybe Forensics would find a clue. It was improbable, but that didn't make it impossible. Peter gathered the painting, the cookies and the Christmas decoration back into the basket, along with the wrapping, and took off his gloves, the left one slightly bloodstained from his grazed knuckles. His feet were starting to ache, and he was pretty sure he owed Diana and Jones for making them stand out here in the cold with him. "Come on," he said. "Let's get our Christmas presents back to the office, and I'll buy you guys a cup of coffee."

Jones eyed the basket with a hungry expression. "And a cookie."

Peter grinned, despite everything. "And a cookie."

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "There are no birds like that." Peter


End file.
